Quest For Success
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“There are many things that have to be done and you are going away. Do not let us waste a single moment.” I was talking to the new recruit when I heard her name called on deck. My mind was in a wild whirl. I had been sitting there like one of the statues that surround the temple of Apollo in Athens.
The thoughtless soldier who had spoken, I found out later, was one of those whom they call “soldiers’ men”—the common soldiers who were always with Caesar—and as I had never seen this man before I did not know him. As soon as he came aboard my attention was taken off the girl and all thoughts of what we were doing disappeared from my mind.
I saw how he had come to his present position; I learned later it is by the way he has explained here—in other words, he was thrown into the army against his wishes. He had served under a number of masters, but none of them was satisfied with him.
Finally, he was transferred from camp to camp until at last, they made up their minds to throw him overboard or give him over to the law for punishment for some offense—so he got a berth on board and took his place in our midst, where now he sits with such good-natured pride that I do not think he will ever leave me again.
We had just been through a storm that left us with nothing to eat. All day long the sky threatened rain and the sea ran high around us so that the ship could go only very slowly. Our food supply was exhausted.
When at night the sky cleared up there would be no more food to cook because the captain had given orders that all cooking fires should be put out so that we might save fuel in case of another storm.
This was a terrible time for us. In addition to the lack of food, I was suffering terribly from seasickness—a condition that I had never known in all my life before. It seemed strange that after I had been sick once and then twice I should suffer so much more.
After this second attack the first mate, who knew nothing about the matter, told me it was due to the bad quality of our food. So now I knew why he hated me. The girl who had spoken to me before was lying down below with the others.
She was still too weak even to stand up. The ship had been pitching heavily and she felt ill and wanted to lie down. We both heard a knock on the door, and then a voice calling, “Come on, come on!” It was the doctor’s voice.
The door opened, and the doctor stepped inside. He was young, full of energy, and well-dressed; he was a good-looking lad in spite of being in his twenties, though he looked older than that. His hair was curly like mine; it was also cut short, and the same shade as the rest of his face.
At first, he stared at me without saying anything. Then he turned to the girl—who was leaning against the wall, with her arms crossed on her breast, looking straight ahead—and asked if she was feeling any better. She smiled and nodded.
He said: “Well, it seems that we need two beds tonight—” And he pulled out two mattresses from under the bed, and laid them on the deck. She thanked him and rose up. As she passed me she caught hold of my arm and leaned against me, pressing herself against me as she used to press against the bulkhead of our prison cell.
I bent down and whispered into her ear, “Goodbye,” but before she could answer she was seized by the doctor. He pushed past me, sat beside her, and began talking to her, but I was so dizzy I couldn’t tell what he said. I saw her shake her head in response to something he said, then turn to me.
I shook my head back; she looked sad. I went up and lay down beside her, and as she stretched out her hand I took it. Then she spoke. Her lips were pale. She looked into my eyes and said, “You will remember?” and then closed her eyes.
As she lay there I noticed how white her skin had become. The blood was draining from every part of her body and leaving her like the dead, cold corpse of a woman. I felt a great fear within myself and wondered why she should die when she was so close to me.
But suddenly there came a cry from below the deck—it sounded like someone crying for help—”Help! Help!” Someone was yelling for water. I jumped up. I could see nothing. My hands were shaking; my eyes wouldn’t focus. I reached for the lamp to light it.
“Don’t open the lantern!” the doctor said, coming towards me. “There’s plenty of light. Look.” He pointed out a faint glow of fire along the horizon. It had grown larger and was spreading out in all directions. Soon a number of small flames appeared. “That is what you are seeing,” he said.
He lit a cigarette and smoked it while he talked to me. As he did so I found I was shivering. The night air had become colder than before. He told me that it was the beginning of the end of the world. There would be no more sea.
It would be a land-locked ocean, a vast desert; the sun itself would burn out and disappear because of the heat it gave off, and its rays would no longer strike upon the earth. That, he explained, was the meaning of the word ‘heat.’ The sun would cease to shine, and the moon would wither away into the sky; then all life on earth would pass into death.
He told me that men have lived thousands of years, but now they would all be destroyed in less than half a century, for the world’s temperature had begun to rise and it had now reached such a level that there was no hope that human life could last another fifty years. This meant the end of the world.
I didn’t believe him. I knew that he was wrong; there must be some other cause behind things. He laughed at me. “Don’t you know anything? You must have forgotten everything in your little cell!” He made fun of me again. I felt angry at the doctor and tried to speak. He shouted at me not to interrupt him.
After a pause, he continued, “We have been living for hundreds of years in perfect comfort on this planet, enjoying all the advantages that nature has to give us. But one day the sun began to shine much hotter. The sea boiled, and the continents melted.
We had to go further north and higher up into the mountains, where there were still forests of pine trees. The rivers dried up and there were no more rains; the whole world became dry and arid, and many of the plants and animals perished or died.
Our people began to live in cities instead of huts. They built themselves towers and temples and enclosed their houses with walls. They grew rich and they forgot what it was like to work in the fields, to till the soil and harvest the crops.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
The doctor paused for a moment as if deciding whether to answer. Finally, after some thought, he said: “We had already learned how to use metal and to make machines. The first thing we did was to construct ships that could cross oceans and seas.
We needed a new source of food and a means of travel—that was the first step.” He went on to explain how it was necessary for men to have control over both the land and the sea, or else they would starve and perish; then he went on to describe the process by which iron ore had been smelted down to make steel.
He described it as “the most beautiful metal.” He also told me how it was used in weapons; that was another reason why men had to take command of land and sea; so that they might protect themselves against enemies. “If you understand that, then you will see that the world has never really suffered any real disaster until now,” he said.
I listened intently, but he was speaking in his own language now; so I did not fully grasp what he meant by these words. I knew only that he spoke as though he were an expert and that he was talking very slowly.
At last, he looked up at me and shook his head impatiently, as though he could tell from my expression that I did not understand him. So I decided to ask him what he meant by the disaster. I asked him what the word meant.
He looked surprised for a moment, as though he had not expected that question. He frowned slightly but did not reply. When I repeated the word to him several times, however, he seemed to accept it without hesitation. Then he took a deep breath and went on talking, but his manner was more casual now as if he had forgotten the subject of his explanation.
He spoke about how, when the sea dried up, there was nothing left for the fish to feed upon, and the creatures in the water died; how the wind had ceased to blow and the weather had turned bitter cold, and the ice had come back and covered the land; how there were no more rains, and how men and beasts had to go hungry.
All these things had happened before; he had seen them happen in his lifetime. He knew that they would all take place once again, and soon. And this time it would be worse than ever.
He spoke about how he himself had spent twenty years traveling to different parts of the world, visiting many places on behalf of the Council, and how he had seen the whole extent of the land; how he had witnessed how men were forced to abandon their homes and seek refuge in high mountains; how they had built villages in caves and abandoned towns, even in the hollows of hills. How there were many who died because of hunger. “It is a terrible thing,” he said. “But it happens every five hundred years, always just after the winter solstice, when the days begin to get shorter.”
“Why?” I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders; the gesture was automatic. “Because we are weak,” he said simply. “We have forgotten our past. Because we don’t have faith.” He looked at me closely for a long time, waiting for me to say something. I said nothing.
He went on speaking, but it was no longer about anything important, only about trivial matters; it was almost like the kind of conversation one might hear among people who had gathered together at a feast and become too drunk to talk sensibly.
After a while he stopped talking and leaned back against the boulder beside me; suddenly the air smelled strange, as though it had been filled with some foul odor. There was no wind blowing, but the smell was still perceptible as if someone nearby had taken off his coat or his tunic, and the odor of his body was filling the air.
I was reminded of that peculiar scent when I was on board the ship, although at such a distance it seemed far stronger than before. I tried not to look around, but I had to glance in that direction, as though compelled by some instinct; so that was why I saw how the man’s eyes were closed.
“Are you sleeping?” I whispered.
For a few seconds, there was no reply. His body swayed slightly, but otherwise, there was no movement. When at last he opened his eyes, his gaze met mine squarely. They were dull black and hard-looking; yet his face had a curious softness about it, as though it had been chiseled out of marble.
For a moment I was afraid, as though he were the devil himself, and so I began to tremble uncontrollably. But then he laughed softly; it was the laugh of a person who was enjoying being alive rather than frightened by death.
He stretched himself lazily, as though taking advantage of the silence to rest; and then, with sudden violence, he seized me by both arms and pulled me roughly toward him; and suddenly I found myself sitting on the ground between his knees. In spite of my fright, I stared up at him with fascination, as if he were a giant who had grown too close to me and was looming larger and taller.
When I was still small, my mother used to sing to me the tale of how the people had made their homes on a green hill above the sea, where they lived as one united group and shared everything. She told me how the great trees sheltered them and kept out the winds.
It was there that I first heard this song and learned its melody. Later she sang other songs as well. My brothers used to tease me and mock me because I had to sit on the floor and listen to her, but my brothers did not understand that she sang for me, for my ears alone.
They thought only that I was too young and stupid to understand. The music of my mother’s voice was beautiful: sweet as spring water or clean as fresh snow. As soon as I began to walk, I used to follow behind her and try to keep up with the rhythm of her feet.
Her steps were quick and light as a bird’s; she could run across the fields with nimble speed and climb hills swiftly, without panting for breath. She taught me to dance when I was very little; she danced before me as if she were an image of happiness and freedom, and her movements became mine.
We sang together, as well, but the songs were simpler ones, as though she had left those for later years when I would grow older. Then came the time when, one night, I was taken from my bed. She led me away into the woods and there she sang to me, whispering the melodies in the darkness of the night.
I was happy, for here at last was a secret I had longed for. When she ceased singing after some time and stood before me, it was then that she told me how to find these forests and how to come to my home again. But I was only a child then, and I did not understand what she meant; all I knew was that I was lost and wanted desperately to be back with my family.
I begged my mother, crying bitterly, to take me back; but she shook her head and spoke softly, saying that I must return and wait until the winter passed. Then one day the cold weather broke, and I went down to the stream near the place where my home had been.
All around me there were dead leaves, dry branches, and fallen twigs; the streams were choked with dead weeds. Everything was frozen and lifeless, as though nothing remained of summer or spring. So I took up a branch and carried it with me when I walked through the forest, just as she had instructed.
One morning, when the mist hung low over the land, I came upon a clearing, and there I saw my mother sitting in her accustomed place under the tree. I ran towards her, crying joyously, and fell at her feet. She looked up at me and smiled with pleasure.
“Why have you come back so late?” she asked. “It is time for you to go home.”
I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “I am going home now, Mother.”
“You need not tell me your name,” she replied quickly. “But remember always what I told you, and come back whenever you want to talk to me. Now farewell!”
With that she turned from me and sat silent. For a moment I watched her; then I knelt down beside her, put my hand out, and touched hers lightly. She did not answer my touch. There was something sad in her face, which somehow seemed even younger than ever before.
Suddenly I remembered the other things she had once promised me: “Come back if you are lonely; come back if you are scared; come back if you are tired of living.” I bent forward, trying to see more closely into her face, and then suddenly I felt her hands tighten about me.
She pulled me to her with a sudden strength I had never seen before, as though she might drag me from the world forever, and I found myself kneeling on the ground with her on top of me. She kissed me hard, as if she were forcing me into a deeper embrace, and then pressed herself against me.
At that moment the memory of that other place vanished—all the places of the forest and the hill, the flowers, and the birds, and all the voices she had sung to me as she rocked me on her lap—and only she remained. Only she! I tried to pull away from her, but I could not move my arm.
With the strength of desperation, I grabbed her dress with both hands and ripped the fabric apart, and in this instant, she let me free. I pushed myself backward, stumbling over stones and thorns, and fled down the stream toward my home.
The End